I attended the writing center event and worked with House Fellow Zach. This was my second time working with them. The first time we met, I learned how to avoid self-editing while writing a rough draft. One method to avoid disruptive self-editing is bracketing. Bracketing is the equivalent of bookmarking the ideas you’re uncertain about/haven’t fully developed so you can come back to them later. For instance, if I wanted to say:
The person had a very loud personality.
But couldn’t initially find the words to do so, I might instead write:
The person was very [gregarious/ obnoxious/ in your face…]
to capture the essence of my ideas. When I complete my draft or else the right word comes to me, I can come back fill my placeholder removing the brackets. The brackets can be used as a placeholder for things like transitions as well… Avoiding self-editing helped me avoid disrupting and slowing my writing process.
When I saw Zach on Friday though, I was told them that I was struggling to turn the bracketed version of my paper into a polished final draft. Their solution was for me to start a new document, copying and pasting the most important parts of my draft into the new document. This condensed version of my draft had the core of my argument, cutting out all my non-contributing sentences or “fluff” of my paper—the type of sentences that, if removed, won’t weaken my paper/argument. I could go on, but Zach basically just taught me how to avoid some of my normal writing and editing pitfalls. Practicing the techniques he taught, I think, will make writing a lot less daunting for me.